Media Medium
8 September 2000

RUPERT MURDOCH

Fishing for the truth about Murdoch the Piscean

Shark or dolphin? Is there something fishy about Rupert Murdoch.

Pisceans often get a good press as dreamy, artistic and
compassionate. You're forgiven then, for failing to recognise
media mogul Rupert Murdoch as a paid-up Piscean (11pm59 GST,
11/3/31, Melbourne). What the books often forget is the inner
contradiction in Pisces. It has two fish swimming in opposite
directions. One is a helpful dolphin, but the other is an all-
devouring shark.

Murdoch's watery nature is compounded by three planets in
Cancer the Crab. Water signs run deep and shy away from the
sunlight, like fish beneath the surface or crabs scuttling under
rocks. This can be an asset in a business context because water
knows which way the tides are turning. Murdoch couples this with
a libertarian, entrepreneur Moon in horsy Sagittarius, which
loves the thrill of the chase, and only now is his confidence
beginning to wane with projects like FiredUp in the dot.com era.

His silver-spoon background and good fortune come from Jupiter
in Cancer, the family sign, and its connections with the Moon.
But what really drives him on? His daughter Elisabeth seems to
speak truthfully when she says her father is not driven by greed.
Murdoch's published time of birth gives us a fuller psychological
profile than one based only on his day of birth. His ambitious
Capricorn Ascendant is tied in with an opposition of controlling
Saturn and autocratic Pluto, right across his money and death
zones. Murdoch's media career began in 1952 when his father died
suddenly and he returned to Australia to take over the family
publishing business. Saturn-Pluto transmutes mortality into cash,
a burden of responsibility which forever pursues him like the
ghost of the father. The question of legacy for him now is the
same question that has always been, binding his own offspring
through a business empire.

The current focus in his horoscope is on Neptune crossing
Venus until the end of November 2001. This god of the sea has
been his empire builder, but now it suggests sacrifice and
dissolution. Neptune's same influence triggers News
International's UK horoscope (28/7/04), perhaps putting it at sea
in the coming months. Murdoch is slipping towards a dissolving
agenda, rather than a definitive stand-down. He may take a major
step along these lines next February, but how will the family
shape up? Elisabeth, Lachlan, James ....watch this space for
further astro-analysis, coming soon.